Lung addie: writing an article for the blog (3)

In this article the third category is discussed and that is the 'story writers'. These writers mainly talk about events that they themselves experienced and or observations that give the readers of the blog an idea of ​​life in Thailand.

As with the previous categories of writers, there is more to this than just writing down a text. First of all, the subject. Sometimes this is the result of an event, recurring or not. Sometimes the result of a figment of the brain, reading an article on the blog or in the media…. Inspiration must certainly be there, otherwise the writer will be stuck, he cannot and will not just make something up in order to be able to publish an article.

As highly valued writers, Lung addie thinks of people like De Inquisitor with his very beautiful Flemish writing style and with his wonderful articles about the Isaan. Does he also think of Chris de Boer with his wonderful series like 'wan di, wan maai di…' and now with his series about the 'conversations between two gentlemen'… Gringo, the most prolific writer on the blog. To name just a few, listing all the authors would make this article too long.

Personally, with more than 100 postings on this blog, Lung Addie knows how he works when writing an article and suspects that the other writers go about the same way. As a writer, you first want to deliver a good article that is useful to the readers. After all, a writer does not write for himself, but for the readers. Must be legible for readers, free of errors as much as possible and, above all, not too long. From experience, being a reader myself, Lung Addie knows that articles that are too long do not really catch on. The reader quickly loses attention if an article is too long. Many readers are not seasoned bookworms, by the way. It is therefore better to divide a long article into several episodes, which is also beneficial for the Blog itself. Several days of new articles, said it on the same subject, but better spread.

A story writer often goes out if he knows about a certain event in his environment and believes that there is a good article in it, then he is present. He also sometimes goes out to take certain photos that can be used as an addition to an article in the making.

Once a writer has a subject, acquired through an event, a personal experience, an article in the media…. has found a suitable title, he can start writing. The main features of the future story are already in his head and roll right out of the pen. That usually goes very quickly. However, the work is not finished. Read and reread, make corrections and most importantly 'deleteand replace. Writing is also deleting. Badly chosen words, unsatisfactory sentence structure, writing errors…. Lung addie lets an article 'rest' after it's been written to pick up the thread again one or two days later. Even then improvements and additions are made. Some writers send the article, once written, to a friend to read and possibly correct. Lung addie himself rarely or never uses it. If the article really fully meets the requirements of the writer, it can be sent to the editors but, before pressing the 'send button', it must be read one last time.

Every writer is usually a very well-read person himself. Has its own distinctive style and you can't just teach it. You either have style or you don't. You can deepen that personal style, but you cannot deny it or change it drastically. Copying someone's style is possible but very difficult to do and usually ends badly and is very difficult to maintain. Writing in what is called 'the third person' can also yield very good results. By the way, it prevents the ever-recurring: I I I I…..

However, to write an article for the blog one does not have to be a scribe. Most writers, see their biography published on the blog, show that a small number have a literary background. Lung addie himself has no literary training, but a purely scientific-technical education. It should therefore not prevent the users of the blog from writing and submitting an article themselves. The more articles, the more reading pleasure.

To be continued.